


Day 13: Baby, It's Cold Outside

by Hapkido9061



Series: 25 Cliché Days of Christmas [13]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: BaekYeol - Freeform, Baking, ChanBaek - Freeform, Christmas, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Fluff, M/M, mentions of other exo members - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 22:55:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16983360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hapkido9061/pseuds/Hapkido9061
Summary: “How did you even make this many? Why did you even make this many?!”“For the children’s hospital. I do it every year."“That’s so sweet! I was expecting you just needed to pack on the pounds for your winter body.”Or...Where Chanyeol bakes cookies for the hospital but ends up with too many left over to eat on his own. Luckily, he know that his neighbor has a huge sweet tooth and loves any kind of free food.





	Day 13: Baby, It's Cold Outside

**Author's Note:**

> So this is actually based on a tradition my family does every year where we do make over 100 dozen cookies! And all the types I listed are ones we make so I had a lot of fun writing it!

Chanyeol peered into the oven as the cocoa cookies were left to bake. The Rolos in the center of each were melting down perfectly. Little bubbles of caramel popped as the chocolate of the Rolos melted further in the cookies’ dough. He stood and stretched his hands up above his head, moving onto the next batch he had planned to make. The Rolo cookies were, after all, his first kind of many for the day.

He flipped through the homemade book of recipes, handwritten by his grandmother, his mother, and now by him with a few of his own recipes sprinkled into the book. There were plenty to choose from. Some like the oatmeal cookies had to be refrigerated overnight (already done at 10 PM the night before) while others like the Oreo balls had to be frozen for a few hours. Sure, they weren’t all the typical Christmas cookies, but each one held a special memory in his heart.

The timer for the Rolo cookies would go off in five minutes or so; and then, Chanyeol still had two more trays of it to bake. That would give him enough time to make the chocolate chip cookie bars topped with a brown sugar meringue. He mixed up the base with the ingredients still sitting on the island from the previous batch. By the time he packed the base down in a pan and sprinkled chocolate chips over the top, the cookies in the oven were done.

While the first batch of Rolo cookies cooled on the temporary card table set up with multiple cooling racks, Chanyeol threw the next set in to bake. As they went in for eight minutes, he moved on to the meringue topping to finish off the cookie bars before putting them in to bake after.

Chanyeol hummed merrily as he whipped up the eggs in the bowl to a stiff peak. He carefully mixed in the brown sugar and a splash of vanilla once they were able to stand on their own. His finger swiped a dollop from the edge of the bowl. A smile came to his lips as the flavor was exactly what he was looking for. Yup, tasted just like Grandma’s.

The next step was to layer it carefully over the chocolate chips and base. Within seconds, it was smoothed out perfectly. The timer dinged and Chanyeol switched them out. Chanyeol brought the hot tray over to the table and transferred the rest of the Rolo cookies to cool like the rest.

He looked over to the second card table set up against the wall of the living room open to the kitchen. All his ingredients were laid out perfectly in their own place. Extra bags of flour and sugar were here, some butter left out to soften next to the baking powder, molasses there. The odd ingredients like peppermint chips and lemon cake mix were farther to the back of the table so he wouldn’t have to dig through them for what he would need more often.

Chanyeol thought for only a moment. He reached for molasses and jar of freshly ground ginger. Gingersnaps were always a classic. Once his mind was set on making them, he had no choice but to follow through. Chanyeol flicked on the radio sitting on his counter. The soft sounds of Christmas songs filled the room with a cheer that couldn’t be described.

At the sound of John Lennon’s “Wonderful Christmastime”, Chanyeol felt his heart swell in happiness. Baking cookies and singing along to Christmas music, who could ever be unhappy doing that?

. . .

“Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” was playing in the background as Chanyeol took small scoops of the thickened pineapple mixture sweetened with sugar and plopped them in the center of the simple dough to the rhythm of the song. With a plastic cutter, he trimmed the square pieces of dough, so they could be folded up into star shapes. They were easily trimmed to look adorable. Chanyeol felt himself swell with pride at how well they all turned out this year.

Looking at the time after he placed the two trays packed with all the pineapple cookies (they didn’t rise much, Chanyeol wasn’t too worried about them baking together), he realized that it was already nearing five in the evening. Chanyeol had been baking for over ten hours after starting at six this morning.

He washed his hands at the sink overflowing with dirty dishes. While he had been washing the spatulas and bowls all through the day, it would only take minutes before they would be in use again for some other cookie recipe. Chanyeol dried his hands on one of the dish towels lying around before pulling his phone out of his pocket.

His fingers tapped around until they found Minseok’s number.

_“Hey Chanyeol, what’s up?”_

“I’m finished with the cookies. You want me to bring them over now?”

Minseok laughed, Chanyeol was sure it was because he was imagining how many he had probably made. _“Now would be perfect. They’re just wrapping up afternoon rounds and dinner for the pediatrics starts in an hour. You can make it by then, right?”_

Chanyeol looked to the timer. It wouldn’t be much longer for those ones and he could use the time to package up the rest. “No problem.”

_“Oh! And we had a school volunteer club bring some cookies in two days ago as well, we probably won’t need all the ones you made.”_

“Ugh… fine. How many do you think?”

_“No more than… fifty dozen this time around. I’ve got to check on some patients now, don’t hesitate to call when you get here!”_

“No problem! Bye, Minseok,” Chanyeol said as he ended the call. He looked to the tables overflowing with cookies. Last tally he did without the pineapple cookies, there were almost a hundred-dozen lying about, and he only could bring half of them. Not that he was complaining, but he would have to find someplace else to give the rest away to.

Chanyeol began to pick out around half of the amount of each cookie and placed them on the plastic trays he’d picked up just for this reason. The kids were surely going to love them. They always did.

Every year, Chanyeol would volunteer to make cookies for the pediatric hospital where most of his friends worked. They had all gone to college together: him, Minseok, Junmyeon, Yixing, Jongin, Kyungsoo, Sehun, and Jongdae. All of them but he and Kyungsoo worked at the hospital as they went to medical school together and all specialized in something different. But in the end, their residencies and full-time assignments led them to the same famous pediatric hospital in a suburb of Seoul.

Kyungsoo had decided early on in their undergrad years that medicine wasn’t for him and switched to architecture. There were much less people he had to deal with in designing buildings. Chanyeol soon followed, switching from the path of becoming a doctor to becoming research scientist. Just like Kyungsoo, Chanyeol realized early on that dealing one on one with patients and working most weekends was not his cup of tea.

But Chanyeol still liked to be involved and so made Christmas cookies for all the kids and their families; he usually brought enough for staff as well. There was every type of cookie loaded onto the numerous trays, so every kid would like _something_.

Pineapple, Andes mint, caramel, pecan, Oreo balls, fudge, lemon, snowball, plain chocolate chip- he made them all and more. So many more. Chanyeol didn’t even know there were this many types of cookies until he would start making them.

The pineapple cookies were finally done baking as Chanyeol finished plating the last of cool cookies. He saved one out just for the pineapple cookies so they could cool on the car ride over. Loading up the car took less time than he planned. Soon enough, Chanyeol was on the road out to the hospital.

. . .

The snow had picked up during the time Chanyeol stayed with the kids and drove back. All he wanted was to tuff his face what his own cookies and the warmth that his condo offered. He ran out of the car after parking it in the parking lot and ran as quickly as he could (over the ice- a difficult feat) up to the main lobby. His was on the fourth floor and Chanyeol would rather not take the stairs tonight.

He clamored into the elevator. As it went up, Chanyeol took a moment to catch his breath and undo his heavy jacket. The elevator let him off at his floor and Chanyeol walked down the hallway to the end where his condo unit was. Right across from him was his neighbor Byun Baekhyun. Faint Christmas music could be heard coming from under the door, but no conversations.

Chanyeol unlocked his door and finished taking off his coat and gloves. He took one look at the enormous pile of cookies and one look back to the still open door. It wouldn’t hurt anything to invite Baekhyun over. It didn’t sound like he had guests right now. If anything, Chanyeol knew he enjoyed the few conversations he had with the short man and this would be a chance to get to know him better. His demeanor was that of a little puppy, something Chanyeol easily loved.

Making up his mind, Chanyeol went straight up to Baekhyun’s door and knocked. A few seconds passed before Baekhyun opened the door.

“Oh! Hello, Chanyeol. What’s up?” He seemed surprised at Chanyeol’s presence. The short man certainly wasn’t expecting any with the oversized Christmas sweater and sweatpants he was wearing. A pair of round rimmed glasses were perched on the end of his nose that he pushed up with a finger. Baekhyun must have noticed Chanyeol staring at his choice of attire and tugged at the sleeves self-consciously.

“I made some Christmas cookies if you want to come over and have some,” Chanyeol said after a moment’s pause. His thumb jerked over his shoulder to where his door stood. “There’s a lot of different ones. I’m sure you’ll like one of them…”

Baekhyun laughed at how flustered Chanyeol. “If you don’t mind me not changing, I’d love to!”

“Of course not!” Chanyeol responded with perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm. “C’mon. They’re all still sitting out.”

The taller led the way over to his unit and let Baekhyun in. Chanyeol was used to the sweet smell after cooking in it all day and even while delivering the cookies, the sugary scent filled all his senses. But this was the first that Baekhyun had been around them at all. His eyes widened at the smell even before his eyes caught sight of the insane amount covering the table and counters.

Chanyeol had let the rest of the cookies not taken to the hospital out to sit to finish cooling completely. And perhaps, he was a tad bit lazy to package them up right at the moment. But Baekhyun didn’t even stop when he caught sight of the mint Hershey kiss cookies.

“How did you even make this many?” Baekhyun asked as his hand reached out to pick out one to eat. He hesitated before Chanyeol came up to his side, picking the mint cookie he was going for and put it into the shorter’s hand. “ _Why_ did you even make this many?!”

“For the children’s hospital. I do it every year,” Chanyeol said simply with a shrug. “I usually don’t have this many extras, but they didn’t need me to bring as many this year.”

Baekhyun shoved the cookie into his mouth as Chanyeol gave his explanation. “That’s so sweet! I was expecting you just needed to pack on the pounds for your winter body.” He giggled as Chanyeol gave him a light hit on the shoulder.

Chanyeol picked out his own cookie, (well, it was fudge but it still counted!) and nibbled on the edge. Baekhyun moved on to the pile of chocolate dipped pretzels that Chanyeol had made last minute. He snuck a handful of the white chocolate ones and ate them one by one.

“We can sit down and watch something if you want,” Chanyeol suggested. He knew from experience that standing around and eating Christmas cookies only resulted in an upset stomach. “There’s probably some Christmas movie playing.”

Baekhyun looked between the living room where an old upright piano sat with lights all around the edges, two plush couches, and the Christmas tree twinkling and covered in ornaments. The TV sat opposite the wall of the piano and tree, hanging high on the wall. It all seemed like the perfect layout, especially when Baekhyun saw the pile of fuzzy blankets folded over the couch’s arm.

But the cookies were all in the kitchen.

Chanyeol laughed at the indecision in Baekhyun’s stature. He reached up and picked out a regular plate, handing it down to Baekhyun.

“Fill it up with a bunch. We can share as we watch!”

Baekhyun nodded eagerly, picking out what seemed to be two or three of each kind. Chanyeol chuckled and went to turn on the TV. He was still flipping through and trying to decide on something other than the Hallmark channel. The short man cozied right up to Chanyeol, stretching his legs out as he flipped up the leg rest.

“Cookie?” He held out the plate of cookies and let Chanyeol pick out one of the cookie bars.

“Delicious…” Chanyeol whispered under his breath as he leaned back.

“Thanks! I made them myself!” Baekhyun joked, earning himself another whack to the arm. The cheeky man was already preparing for more sarcastic hits to his arms that Chanyeol was sure to deliver.

But sitting together and stuffing themselves full of sugar and carbs and sweet goodness, Chanyeol couldn’t help but think of how great a tradition this could be if Baekhyun wanted to start it.


End file.
